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Re: Lyrids and Meteorite Fall Statistics
ALMitt@kconline.com schrieb:
> Could the statistics favor a drop of Earths orbit a bit out of the
> orbital plane that it might be in during the summer months or perhaps
> a drop off due to the orbital plane of the meteoroids or maybe even
> both?
I don't think the Earth's orbital plane changes during the summer
months. What we do know is that the Earth is a little bit farther away
from the Sun in summer than in winter. Meteoroids are too small relative
to the mass of the Earth to play a major part and we should also
remember George Zay's comments in his mail to the List and to JJ: 'A
meteor doesn't orbit the earth...it encounters it.' Thus, I do think -
as O.R. Norton does - that we may be moving through a more densely
populated area of meteoroids during the summer months.There is one more
argument I forgot last night. O.R. Norton wrote in his book that there
should be essentially the same amount of meteor reports during the
spring and fall months if the fall frequency is uniform throughout the
year. Let's suppose it is really uniform, then there should be an equal
amount of falls during all four seasons - a result that could neither be
ascertained by looking at all fall data nor by narrowing down the data
to the interval 1940-1998.
I chose 1940-1998 because I think that since Nininger's days people
worldwide have become much more aware of chunks from space. To make such
statistical research more meaningful and less biassed, it would be
interesting to have the U.S. military sky surveys from the days of the
Cold War between East and West at one's disposal as anything potentially
dangerous in the sky was painstakingly recorded and documented.
Best wishes, Bernd
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